


Restrictive

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Series: Eating is so gross! [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: ARFID, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Eating Disorders, Gen, Second person POV, amethyst's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 18:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21451096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Your roommate is odd in many ways. Her obsession with cleaning up after you is admirable and her adherence to routine is astonishing. But her eating habits are more than a little weird. In fact, they're rather concerning.
Relationships: Amethyst & Pearl (Steven Universe)
Series: Eating is so gross! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546321
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Restrictive

The first thing you notice when you live with Pearl is that the house practically cleans itself.

You never used to make any effort. Why would you? If your friends are judgemental enough to be jerks over your house being a mess, then you don’t like them enough to invite them over. It might look unsightly, but you had a system.

All of that changed when you replied to Pearl’s Facebook post asking if anyone in Beach City needed a roommate.

You still have a system, and she’s been careful to avoid moving your stuff without asking you, which is good. People touching your stuff makes you panic a little, not that you’d admit it. And since you count your bedroom door under the umbrella of your stuff, and you told her very clearly that the key you gave her is only to be used if you’re trapped somehow, your room is just as messy as ever. The rest of the house, on the other hand…

Your stuff is still in piles everywhere, but it’s all clean. The bench is wiped, the dishes are washed regularly, the walls are clear of cobwebs … it’s a welcome change.

The second thing you notice when you live with Pearl is that she works like clockwork.

Every morning, five on the dot, she’s up. You only know this because of the rare Friday nights on which you either party all night and get home late or stay up all night with a friend you’ve invited over. And because she mentions it so much. 

At seven, she leaves for work. She works as a personal assistant to a woman named Rose who you’re eighty per cent sure she’s secretly dating. It’s rare for you to be up by seven, but she used to leave a note, for the first few weeks she was living with you.

At three-thirty, she gets home. Four PM is piano practice. After five she’s normally reading. At six she makes dinner, which is the third thing you notice when you live with Pearl.

The third thing you notice when you live with Pearl is that she’s a woman of strange eating habits.

She always refuses your offer of home-made pasta, or ordering a pizza, or going to the KFC drive-through. She always makes her own food except for the rare time that she’s going to some fancy restaurant. She always declines your offer of just sharing whatever you make for yourself. She stands in the corner of the kitchen making rice and cringes at your offerings.

You think it’s pretty rude.

She says she does not eat whatever you’re eating -- pizza, chicken, bacon, whatever it is, she won’t eat it. “I’m a picky eater,” she says defensively. Or sometimes, “I have dietary requirements.”

Pfft.

That’s pretty much the only thing she’s rude about, though, so after the first couple weeks you decide to just let her be.

That’s not the only weird part of her eating, though. 

You’re never up early enough to see her make breakfast, but based on what’s vanishing from the fridge each morning, you’d have to guess that she’s eating nothing but salad. You wouldn’t end up eating the salad yourself, so you can’t complain. But … she needs other foods, right? Won’t she get, like, an everything deficiency?

Not to mention the concerning number of mornings you open the fridge and it’s the same as last night. Now, you’ve skipped breakfast once or twice, everyone has -- but it’s not every other day that you’re up at five and not eating until your lunch break. If she even eats on her lunch break -- you’re not sure if there’s a place for her to get food at her work, but you don’t think she’s bringing anything with her.

She’s almost too skinny to be human and it’s hard not to be a little worried. 

There are other quirks, too. Like how she always insists on using skim milk for her coffee. 

“It’s not like you need to lose weight,” you mutter defensively one Friday morning. There’s no skim milk in the house and the store’s not open yet, so you decided to just risk it and use full cream. You expected that she wouldn’t notice, but she had barely moved it to her lips before she spat it out and asked what type of milk it was.

“I know,” she mutters, equally defensive. “It tastes different.”

You haven’t got a clue what the hell she’s on about.

She’s a woman of strange habits, and you figure that being roommates implies a mutual agreement to ignore these habits. If she neglects to mention your messy room and panic when people touch your stuff, then you’ll happily sweep her borderline anorexia under the rug.

But when she fails to come out to make dinner at six, you can’t help but grow concerned. 

You knock on her door. It takes a few moments for her to open it. There’s a closed book on her bed, a teal ribbon acting as a bookmark, which presumably explains the delay. “Hi, Amethyst.”

“Hey, P,” you reply. “Aren’t you gonna make food? You normally eat by now.”

“Oh, um…” Her face falls. “There’s no rice.”

“Cool, need a lift to the store?”

She shakes her head. “I went earlier today. They don’t have the brand I like.”

You raise an eyebrow. “...Then get a different brand?”

“I can’t.”

“...Uh, okay. I’m making hamburgers, want one?”

“...No thanks.”

“Dude, aren’t you hungry?”

“Um…” She hesitates. “I am. But … I don’t eat hamburgers. I’m a picky eater.”

“...” How picky is this girl, that she won’t eat if she’s hungry? “Can’t you just, like, plug your nose? So you can’t taste it?”

“...I’ve tried that.”

“Well, I mean, you should probably just suck it up. I mean, if you can’t have rice, you can’t have rice. Besides, don’t you just eat that and salad? Don’t you have, like, an everything deficiency?”

“...I take multivitamins,” she mumbles weakly in explanation, gesturing to a bottle of orange pills on her desk. “I’ll have one now, actually. It’ll substitute for a meal.”

Your eyebrows are raised and your hamburgers are burning. You can’t help but feel a little insulted that she’d rather starve than give you a chance.

“Dude, are you a ‘picky eater’ or do you have an eating disorder?”

Her hand, which was halfway to the multivitamins, freezes in mid-air. 

“Amethyst, that’s not something you joke about!”

She’s more angry than you’ve ever seen her. She quickly realises her outburst and her cheeks turn pink. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. But…”

“...I was right, wasn’t I?”

“...Your hamburgers are probably going to burn.”

It’s a thinly-veiled excuse for you to leave. You take it.

* * *

You drop into Pearl’s room again as they’re cooling down. You tell her that you’re putting a hamburger on a plate for her, and that you’ll eat it if she won’t but you’d really like her to at least try.

Against all odds, she comes to the table.

You eat in silence, partially due to the difficulty of starting a conversation after awkward outburst in her room, and partially because she’s not eating. She’s here just to be polite, it seems. Your periodic raised eyebrows and “are you gonna eat that?”s are met with small nods, but she’s staring at it silently, as though scared to actually try it.

As you finish your plate, she sighs in defeat and pushes hers toward you. “I can’t do it. I’ll just have a multivitamin.”

“Pearl…” you sigh, and she seems to know you’re worried because this is probably the first time since you met her that you’ve used her actual name.

“I’m sorry. I … I tried, but … I can’t eat it, Amethyst.” You open your mouth to ask a question. “And before you ask, I’m not anorexic.” You close your mouth, and open it again. “Or bulimic.” You close your mouth. You have nothing to say.

Glancing up in the hope that she’ll protest, you start to cut off a piece of her burger to nibble on. This whole thing has really killed your appetite.

“Then what’s wrong with you?” you ask. 

It didn’t seem quite so rude in your head.

“Dietary requirements.”

“...Dude, are you picky, allergic, or anorexic? You change your answer every time I ask.”

“...I’m sorry.” She shrinks down in her chair. “...Like I said, I’m not anorexic or bulimic. But … I do have an eating disorder.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Uh, aren’t they the only two?” You pause. “Wait, no, there’s, uh, EDNOS, right? Eating disorder not otherwise specified?”

“...There are actually more than three eating disorders.” She sounds annoyed. It’s better than her sounding vulnerable. “And some of them have nothing to do with body image.”

“...If you’re not trying to lose weight, then why don’t you eat?”

“Like I said. Picky eating. Except … it’s a bit of an extreme case.” She forces a laugh. “It’s called Avoidant-Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. I … can’t eat a lot of things.”

“Well, what can you eat?”

“...” She hesitates. “There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. But … I can’t eat very much meat. Or anything with grease or sauce.”

“Yes,” you say, somewhat annoyed. “but what can you eat right now? I’ll give you a lift, if that helps.”

“Amethyst!” she hisses. “People will stare. I don’t want to be that girl that orders a salad for dinner at a fancy restaurant.”

“And I don’t want to be that girl that lets my roommate starve. Come on, you really can’t afford to be skipping meals.” 

You take out your car keys, and Pearl, however reluctantly, walks outside with you.

On your way to the restaurant, you stop to get some more skim milk. You put it in the back seat with none of your usual annoyed sighs and passive-aggressive comments, and you hope the apology is implicit.

You’re beginning to understand your roommate a little better.

You still don’t know why she spends so much time cleaning up after you, though.


End file.
